Ancrene Wisse: a Medieval Guide for Anchoresses

Ancrene Wisse (or Ancrene Riwle) is a thirteenth-century
English guide for anchoresses composed by an Augustinian canon for three
anchorite sisters. As an instructional or didactic work, the author of the
Ancrene Wisse was influenced by the standard sources that influenced Aelred
of Rievaulx's own guide a century earlier: biblical sources (especially the
Psalms and New Testament), Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Anselm, Bernard, and the
Rule of St. Benedict.

The similar structure and content of the Ancrene
Wisse to Aelred's work suggests the latter as a clear model. At the same time, Ancrene
Wisse develops complex methods of classification that reflect the growing
scholasticism of its day. Considering the Ancrene's Old English and Latin texts as a
source of criticism and analysis is one of the main interests of modern scholarship. Our interest
here, besides description, is the psychology of the anchorite and how the Ancrene
Wisse reveals it.

The chapters or sections of Ancrene Wisse are:

Devotions

Protecting the Heart through the Senses

Birds and Anchorites: the Inner Feelings

Fleshly and Spiritual Temptations and Comforts and Remedies for Them

Confession

Penance

The Pure Heart and the Love of Christ

The Outer Rule

1. The first chapter outlines the routine of prayers recommended to the
anchorites in general and prayers assigned to hours such as Matins or responses
to the Mass. The anchorite living in a dwelling attached to a church, with a
window for participating in ecclesiastical services, extended devotional life in
a literal way, which was exactly the situation of the three sisters to whom Ancrene Wisse is
addressed.

2. This section uses the five senses to illustrate the distractions and bad
influences the anchorites must anticipate and why they must be avoided. This
practical advice applies to women religious in cloister, but by extension
constitutes Christian ethics in general. Today we would substitute the word
asceticism for ethics, however. This dichotomy existed in the Middle Ages
itself as much as today, but the line is deliberately blurred for the professed
religious. The self-discipline of the solitary -- the simplicity
and detachment characterizing solitude -- is partly grounded on
behavior, namely what psychology would call avoidance behavior, what the Ancrene
Wisse calls "protecting the heart."

The anchorhold has a window or windows to the world, and the Ancrene Wisse has
as its first bit of practical advice the following admonition: "My dear sisters,
love your windows as little as you can." For from sight comes "all the misery
that there now is and ever yet was and ever shall be ..."

The author elaborates not on the evils of seeing so much as being seen. Trust
not the intentions of men, he warns, be they priests, bishops, or friars, citing
the stories of Dinah and Bathsheba, and quoting Augustine, Bernard, and a
story of St. Martin of Tours. The withdrawal of the anchoress means familiarity
with no male's sight.

As to speech, the anchoress should avoid gossip and conversation as much as
the giving of advice or teaching of children. If speech is necessary, a witness
should be present, even if discretely distant during confession. Silence, not
only in liturgical seasons but as a sensible mien, is enjoined by the author
with copious scriptural quotations. Here is a summary passage of the author's
guidance re sight and speech:

My dear sisters: If any man asks to see you, ask him what good may come of
it, since I see many evils in it and no profit. If he is importunate, trust him
the less. If any is so mad as to put his hand out towards the window curtain,
quickly straight away shut the window right up and let him be. Likewise, as soon
as anyone gets on to any wicked talk that has to do with foul love, fasten the
window straight away, and do not answer him at all ...

The status of the anchoress as both professed religious but also physically
isolated from the resources of a community highlight the potential difficulties
of the anchoress. Like Aelred, the author of Ancrene Wisse is acutely aware of
the potential for abuse, her own and from others, aware of seduction by idle
men and the despair of isolation and lack of companionship that may plague the
anchoress
and lead her to temptation. Like Aelred, our author knows of pregnancies, gossip,
fraud, of maid-servants who betray or tempt the virtue of their mistresses.
Hence his warnings about the anchoress seeing or hearing or speaking to
visitors, especially male. On this he is emphatic:

Touching of hands or any contact between a man and an anchoress is a thing so
unseemly and a deed so shameful and so naked a sin, so horrible to all the world
and so great a scandal, that there is no need to speak or write against it, for
without any writing at all the foulness is too apparent. God knows, I would much
prefer to see you all, my dear sisters, dearest of women to me, hang on a
gibbet so as to avoid sin, than see one of you give a single kiss to any man on
earth in the way I mean. I am silent on anything further.

But the author does conjure one image to complement his strong words on
"touching of hands" above.

For herself to look at her own white hands does harm to many an anchoress who
keeps them too beautiful, like those who have nothing at all to do. They should
each day scrape up the earth of their graves, in which they will rot.

Anchorites were often buried in their cells and indeed, the religious
ceremony for an anchorite's severe profession carried the words and symbols of
death and burial.

3. This chapter set out to make analogies between anchorites and birds. The
text frequently falls into lengthy digressions. It enumerates birds that reflect
given virtues, according to medieval myth or lore. "True anchoresses are called
birds," says the author,

for they leave the earth -- that is, love of all worldly things -- and
through yearning in heart for heavenly things fly upwards towards heaven. ...
The wings which bear them upwards, they are virtues which they must stir into
good deeds as a bird when it wants to fly stirs its wings.

The section begins with the famous "pelican in the wilderness" image from
Psalm 101.7, with the translator using "pelicano solitudinis" as a pelican "that
lives on its own." The pelican myth is that in its wrathful nature it kills its
young but later laments its angry deed by striking its breast until blood runs.
The passionate anchoress slays her good works but must lament in confession.

Other bird images include:

pelican: little flesh and many feathers;

ostrich: abundant flesh but feet always dragging to the earth;

eagle: precious agate in its nest to protect against harm, agate being
equivalent to Jesus;

night-bird (raven of Psalm 101.7): recluses who live under the church's
eaves; night-flyers for food are analogous to the anchorite's contemplation and flight
to heaven;

sparrow (of Psalm 101.8): "alone under the roof" it twitters constantly,
analogous to the anchoress who will "warble and titter her prayers on her
own."

Not only does the medieval fascination with animals and symbolism reveal
itself here but also the penchant for classification. Among the digressions of
this section, the author presents a list of eight things that "summon us always
to be watching and working in some good deed." They are:

this short life;

this difficult path;

our good, which is so meager;

our sins, which are so many;

death, of which we are certain and uncertain when;

the stern judgment of Judgment Day;

the sorrow of hell;

how great is the reward in the bliss of heaven

And he offers eight reasons to flee the world:

safety: outside the anchorhold a ravaging lion prowls the street

the soul as a brittle container in a crowd; do not carry a precious vial
in an unruly mob

gaining of heaven

proof of nobility and generosity

noble men and women are generous with what they leave

to be private with God

to see more brightly in heave God's bright face

to have prayers full of life.

4. The core of the Ancrene Wisse is section four, an enumeration of
temptations, remedies, virtues, and vices. This chapter is the heart of
Christian ethics for its period, making the anchorite's rule essentially a
more attentive application of morals.

Temptation is considered outer and inner. Outer temptation comes from
external displeasures such as "sickness, distress, shame, misfortune and each
bodily hardship which troubles the flesh." Internal displeasures are
"heart-sickness, wrath and anger, also being in pain." External pleasures are
"health of body, food, drink, enough clothing..." Internal pleasures arise from
flattery, praise, false kindnesses, self-deceptions.

Temptation is not evil as such, clear from the fact that temptations can
originate with God. Among external displeasures are, for example, "sickness that
God sends, not that someone gets through their own stupidity." The author lists
positive effects of "sent" sickness: forgiveness of sins, patience and humility
among the resulting virtues when sickness is rightly accepted.

The inner temptations, says the Ancrene Wisse, are more complex. They
may be of the flesh (lechery, gluttony, sloth) and of the spirit (pride, envy,
anger, covetousness). The entire set of capital sins are inner temptations.
Using Jeremiah's image of the wilderness and the image of Jesus' forty days, the
author builds the image of inner temptations:

The wilderness is the solitary life of the anchoress's dwelling, for just as
in the wilderness there are all the wild beasts, and they will not endure men
coming near but flee when they hear them, so should anchorites, above all other
women, be wild in this way, and then they will be desirable, above other women,
to Our Lord. ...

In this wilderness are many evil beasts: the lion of pride, the snake of
poisonous envy, the unicorn of anger, the bear of dead sloth, the fox of
covetousness, the sow of gluttony, the scorpion with the tail of stinging
lechery, that is, lust.

These, of course, are the seven capital sins.

But the author continues the animal analogies, enumerating a classification
of the sins. "The lion of pride has very many cubs," he states, and enumerates
them: vainglory, indignation, hypocrisy, presumption, disobedience, loquacity,
blasphemy, impatience, contumacy, contention, "airs and graces."

There is an excellent elaboration on the last -- "airs and graces"-- and the
Ancrene Wisse offers a thorough treatment of each category, concluding
with an enumeration of consolations and remedies. Here, for example, it treats
of the sin of lethargy or inertia.

Inertia's remedy is spiritual gladness and the consolation of glad hope,
through reading, through holy thinking, or from people's mouths. Often, dear
sisters, you must pray less in order to read more. Reading is good prayer.
Reading teaches how and what to pray, and prayer obtains it afterwards. ...
[Quoting Jerome, Letter 22], "Let there be holy reading always in your
hand; let sleep steal away your book from you as you hold it, and let the holy
page receive your drooping head." You must read earnestly and long like this.
Everything, however, can be overdone: moderation is always best.

It has been estimated that the standard devotions would have taken the
anchoresses four hours. Add to this liturgical services, private prayer,
meditation, and devotional reading. Though reading has its limited sources, the
passages above clearly suggest three things: 1) the ability of the anchoresses
to read, which hints at their social status, 2) the availability of material for
them, and 3) the author's own sense of the importance of the written word in
producing the Ancrene Wisse for the sisters.

5-6. These chapters would not offer new information or counsel to the
medieval anchorite, but does highlight the central role of the sacrament of
penance in the psychology of the Church.

7. This section describes the reciprocity of Christ to the anchorite who
practices the cultivation of a pure heart through adherence to the virtues and
practices of the first six chapters.

There is, says the author, a chivalrous sense of love to Christ's wooing of
the soul. Love of God is "the rule that rules the heart." Much scholarship has
focused on how the Old Testament image of the Song of Solomon identified
the role of religious women with Christ -- as well as the role of women in
medieval society in general. The Ancrene Wisse certainly provides that
sort of first-hand resource.

8. The outer rule governs diet, work, feast days, clothing, visitation,
servants, and related mundane aspects of anchoritic life. The outer rule governs
moral practices not enjoined by vow. Yet the author recommends the "outer rule"
because it helps the anchorite achieve spiritual goals. The author asks the
anchoresses to read these outer rules to their servants weekly until the latter
have understood them well.

So ends the Ancrene Wisse, a pageant of practical and spiritual,
always assuming that the anchoritic life is a superior grace but also an
entirely rational one. Despite his personal interest in literary classifications
and allegories, and his apparent dependence on the structure and benign attitude
of Aelred of Rievaulx, the author of the Ancrene Wisse has composed a
unique record not only of anchoritic practice but of medieval Christian
spirituality. To the sisters themselves, the author asks of his record, his
Ancrene Wisse,

Read from this book daily, when you are at leisure, less or more. I hope that
, if you read it often, it will be very profitable to you through God's great
grace. ...

¶

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Standard editions of the Ancrene Wisse in English translation include
Anchoritic Spirituality: Ancrene Wisse and Associated Works, translated
and edited by Nicholas Watson and Anne Savage; New York: Paulist Press, 1991,
and Ancrene Wisse: Guide for Anchoresses, translated with
introduction by Hugh White; Harmonsworth, New York: Penguin Classics,
1994. A web-based version edited by Robert Hasenfratz (2000) is available at: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/hasenfratz.htm